South Street Bridge, Commissioners for the Erection of the

[Record group 163]

Agency Function

This Commission has ceased to function.

Agency History

Created by an Act of Assembly of April 5, 1866 which empowered the Commissioners to erect the bridge and finance the project by creating a loan of $600, 000 for which the City was to be responsible, after the City had refused to comply with an Act of 1861 requiring that it build the bridge with the proceeds of a loan of $250,000 which the Act also directed be made. An Act of April 5, 1867 added the Mayor, Presidents of Select and Common Councils, and seven other citizens to the originally-named twenty-member board, directed the Chief Engineer and Surveyor of the City to supervise the construction of the bridge, and ordered the creation of a loan of an additional $200,000. The bridge was completed in February of 1876. It collapsed in February 1878 and was replaced by a temporary wooden structure. The present bridge was constructed by the City in 1922. No provision appears to have been made for the abolition of the Commission. Their last extant minutes are dated November 29, 1876.